What distro goes with my CPU / Help a newbie please :(

[Gokudan]

Hi there guys!!!

It's been a while since i posted the last time, i really gave up installing gentoo last year since i am a completely noob on linux matters, i've tried ubuntu now and then, but i am a gamer, and i have a laptop with no so much HD space and it came with vista business wich is a hd space eater (well, all vista versions consume a lot of hd) and since i use photoshop, webcam, msn, googletalk and specially Office 2007 and quite some games i was on a dilemma, i installed Ubuntu for some time but hd space was an issue since i got a little space left for documents, manuals and games..

So here's the thing, i have a Dell XPS m1710 laptop with a Geforce 7900GS, 2GB of RAM, 100GB HD, bluetooth, wireless, etc; and as i said i use Office 2007, Photoshop, A webcam (genius), firefox 3, google talk, VPN connections, SAP GUI (critical since i work as a SAP BASIS Consultant) and oblivion, CoD 2, CS Source, NWN2, Diablo 2 and some other games and of course the future Diablo 3 hahahahaha. Also i use a HP D4160 printer.

What should be the distro for my laptop, it has a Core 2 Duo T7400 processor, i'm guessing x86, or i'm guessing wrong? Should i be able to use all of the above programs and games?

The reason i'm asking this is because i do not want to use vista or any windows anymore, i'm getting tired of it and i really want to learn linux and the only way to get into it is eliminating any windows around lol.

Hope hearing from you soon,

Best Regards,
GD.

[idella4]

Well, in a gentoo forum should we advise another distro? Hmmm, well.

In your list, ofcourse gentoo can cover your requests. What concern me are the wireless and the webcam. I've only just got wireless working because Ubuntu found the driver for it and I would never have been able to match the driver name with my D-ling card.
Windows routinely covers these, linux is constantly playing catch up.
This forum will help with references to hardware lists to see if your drivers are covered.
Cover the drivers, then begin installing. Gentoo is challenging, but flexible and powerful.

good luck

[anton123]

Hi Gokudan,

I am also a newbie but based on my guess, you should check this out first:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/Safe_Cflags

For your Core 2 Duo this may be the right choices:

32 bit profile (x86)

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=prescott -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

64 bit profile (amd64)

CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

Can anyone else please clarify what the best match is? By the way Gokudan, which city are you from?

[Gokudan]

Well idella4 i never asked about ubuntu...if you read carefully you will see i was asking for Gentoo not another distro, i just mentioned ubuntu as a reference...and when i meant distro i was talking about Gentoo arch distro, ia64, amd64, x86, etc.

Thx for the info!
I will check it out.

[Gokudan]

Hi Gokudan,

I am also a newbie but based on my guess, you should check this out first:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/Safe_Cflags

For your Core 2 Duo this may be the right choices:

32 bit profile (x86)

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=prescott -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

64 bit profile (amd64)

CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

Can anyone else please clarify what the best match is? By the way Gokudan, which city are you from?

Thx for your nice response anton, well, i'm not from the US hehe, i live in venezuela but i am portuguese.

Can anyone clarify if i should go for x86 with my core 2 duo?

thank you very much.

[idella4]

yes ok. So that's what a distro is.

[Gokudan]

yes ok. So that's what a distro is.

I never said that was a distro, i said that's what i meant with it....and i think your first comment was not very polite, so you will be treated like you treat others, and i'm maybe a newbie at linux but not a newbie in things related with technology and forums...

[anton123]

Hey Gokudan,

Thanks for the reply. Personally, I have tried the Gentoo 2006.1 live CD which i in my opinion was the best released version. Both, 2007.0 and 2008.0-r1 seem to have problems. I don't know why that is happening. Anyhow, I live in Toronto, Canada. Do you have any friends living in Toronto? My email, cristianxanton@gmail.com

By the way, if your Core 2 Duo is 32 bit architecture, go for x86 otherwise go for x86_64 or still try x86 Gentoo on it.

Thanks!

[Gokudan]

Hey Gokudan,

Thanks for the reply. Personally, I have tried the Gentoo 2006.1 live CD which i in my opinion was the best released version. Both, 2007.0 and 2008.0-r1 seem to have problems. I don't know why that is happening. Anyhow, I live in Toronto, Canada. Do you have any friends living in Toronto? My email, cristianxanton@gmail.com

By the way, if your Core 2 Duo is 32 bit architecture, go for x86 otherwise go for x86_64 or still try x86 Gentoo on it.

Thanks!

I think my Core 2 Duo is 64bits since on intel website says it is compatible with Intel® 64 technology that takes advantage of 64bits OS's when they come out (Vista 64 for example), but i have a little question, since it is Intel Arch instead of AMD, shouldn't i be using the i64 distro instead of the amd64? or i64 is just for itanium processors?


Well, i actually don't know anyone on Canada hehe! i'll add you later to my msn.

[hielvc]

You can run a "Core 2 Duo" or "AMD64" as a 32 or 64 bit processor. At this time 32 bit is easier by a nod to setup and run. If you want to work into 64bit make a 8 to 10Gig partition now and at a latter time do a 64bit install into it.

[anton123]

Hey Gokudan,

"since it is Intel Arch instead of AMD, shouldn't i be using the i64 distro instead of the amd64? or i64 is just for itanium processors? "

To tell you the truth, I haven't seen or checked into the existence of such architecture supported by Gentoo. However, based on what I know so far, i64 is for Itanium processors only. The AMD64 architecture is based on the Intel64 architecture so you can safely use the Gentoo release for the AMD64 architecture. For instance I use the x86 Gentoo version on my AMD64 machine with no problems. So, the other scenario should work more or less too.

My MSN is crisanton1@hotmail.com The other email is just my general email I use.

[NathanZachary]

The name AMD64 was assigned because it was the originally supported 64-bit architecture with Gentoo. That architecture's installation discs support Intel-based 64-bit processors as well, but the name was kept for historical purposes. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

[Cyker]

You have: Core2 Duo!

You can use:
x86 for a 32-bit Gentoo
or
AMD64 for a 64-bit Gentoo.

x86 is less hassle in the short run, but I'm assured 64-bits is 'cooler'
I personally'd recommend 32-bits unless you have a need for 64-bits, but this part is your choice! For the most part, there isn't that much difference between 64 and 32-bits, but you can't easily switch from one to the other (It requires a full system rebuild).

IA64 is indeed for the Intel Itanium series CPUs, and won't work on a Core2.



Be warned 'tho - Gentoo is *hard*, and needs a good bit of time and dedication to get running because, unlike other distros, you need to KNOW what you are doing.

This makes it great for learning how Linux 'works' (The handbooks are good handholding materials, and this forum is second to none for support ), but it will need some time (When I first tried it, I re-installed 7 times before I got the base working the way I wanted! Since then, that same install has been through 5 computers to this one, without any re-installing! )

[Gokudan]

Thank you guys for all of your answers i really appreciate it

I have a doubt, i'm seeing the download links, and here's the list for 2008:

Gentoo 2008.0 Minimal CD/InstallCD
(up to 140 megabytes depending on arch)
alpha amd64 hppa ia64 ppc/ppc64 sparc64 x86

Gentoo 2008.0 Universal install CD
(up to 600 megabytes depending on arch)
hppa ppc/ppc64 sparc64

Gentoo 2008.0 LiveCD
(up to 710 megabytes depending on arch)
i686 amd64

what's the difference between i686 and x86??


And yeah, i know Gentoo is really hard, since i tried to install it 2 years ago and i couldn't do it, i had in that time an Athlon 64 3500+ PC, but well...by the time i got to compile the kernell i got A LOT of warnings, and i mean A LOT, lol, plus i guess a couple of fatal errors or something like that ha ha ha; since i didn't know what i was doing...and it doesn't mean the sittuation changed hahahaahahahah i still don't know what i'm doing but i feel less ignorant than in the past, and since i really want to get rid of windows...so, that's were the motivation is.

Thanks for the comments.

BR's
GD.

[hielvc]

Gokudan x86 is for i386s, 486s, pentiums and up. The i686 is compiled to run on pentium2's, 3s, 4s, athlons and up.

[Gokudan]

Gokudan x86 is for i386s, 486s, pentiums and up. The i686 is compiled to run on pentium2's, 3s, 4s, athlons and up.

Thanks for the info man, i really appreciate it!!!!

[Gokudan]

Well guys, i just downloaded amd64 and i'm currently downloading i686 too, i'm gonna check my hardware around the forums and then do some research about Office 2k7 issues.

I'll keep in touch once i start making the install, i'm going right for 64 arch if i see too much trouble i'll go i686.
Wish me good luck.

Thanks for the help.

BR's
GD.

[Gokudan]

Omg...

I downloaded the Live 2008-r1 CD and tried using GTK+ installer and of course it finished, i have a booting system but in X.11 (i guess how it is called right?), of course it didn't detected my wlan adapter and for a weird reason the user i created was not there, it just does not exist :S.

What can i do now? can i boot again with the Live CD and do a fresh install via terminal or i need to use a Minimal CD to do the stage 3 tarball installation method?

I appreciate all help and tips.
Thanks.

BR's
GD.

[k4misiek]

CoD 2, CS Source, NWN2, Diablo 2 and some other games and of course the future Diablo 3

CoD 2 on wine 1.0-rc1 work fine but sound is of lower quality than on Windows.
CS 1.6 and Source(Steam) works fine but FPS is smaller than on Windows.
Diablo 2 workly perfect! BTW: Do you know, latest update suppert game without CD ?

[ShinyThings]

Omg...

I downloaded the Live 2008-r1 CD and tried using GTK+ installer and of course it finished, i have a booting system but in X.11 (i guess how it is called right?), of course it didn't detected my wlan adapter and for a weird reason the user i created was not there, it just does not exist :S.

What can i do now? can i boot again with the Live CD and do a fresh install via terminal or i need to use a Minimal CD to do the stage 3 tarball installation method?

I appreciate all help and tips.
Thanks.

BR's
GD.

Use the manual stage3 tarball method. You're quite lucky to have a bootable system using the GTK installer (or the CLI-based installer), they are absolutely horrible.

[Gokudan]

Omg...

I downloaded the Live 2008-r1 CD and tried using GTK+ installer and of course it finished, i have a booting system but in X.11 (i guess how it is called right?), of course it didn't detected my wlan adapter and for a weird reason the user i created was not there, it just does not exist :S.

What can i do now? can i boot again with the Live CD and do a fresh install via terminal or i need to use a Minimal CD to do the stage 3 tarball installation method?

I appreciate all help and tips.
Thanks.

BR's
GD.

Use the manual stage3 tarball method. You're quite lucky to have a bootable system using the GTK installer (or the CLI-based installer), they are absolutely horrible.

I'll do as you say man, btw, is stage 3 tarball networkless? or can it be networkless? since i have wifi all around the house and no possibility of unpluggin the dsl modem and connect it to me laptop...my dad,sister, niece would kill me lol..

I just printed the amd64 networkless manual and i am following it

Any thoughts or recomendations?

Thx.

BR's
GD.

[Gokudan]

Well i was able to finish the networkless installation of amd64 and i am able to boot and see the command line, but of course there's no GUI, i tried su to root but it says permission denied, i tried the solution "gpasswd -a username wheel" but it says "gpasswd: Permission denied" also tried "usermod -G users, wheel username" but no good either, as it says "-bash: usermod: command not found" ..

when i type groups at prompt i only see:

users myusername

Any thoughts?

BR's
GD

[ShinyThings]

Well i was able to finish the networkless installation of amd64 and i am able to boot and see the command line, but of course there's no GUI, i tried su to root but it says permission denied, i tried the solution "gpasswd -a username wheel" but it says "gpasswd: Permission denied" also tried "usermod -G users, wheel username" but no good either, as it says "-bash: usermod: command not found" ..

when i type groups at prompt i only see:

users myusername

Any thoughts?

BR's
GD

You have to be root to modify your user details.

So, did you set a root password during the install? If so, just logout from your user account and login as root. Then, set up your regular user with the permissions and groups desired.

If you did not, you will have to chroot in (using the LiveCD) and type passwd to set the root password. Then, proceed as I said above.

For the GUI, look here. Start with the The X Server Configuration HOWTO. If you have an nvidia or ATI graphics card, check out those guides too. After all of that, you can look at the guides for the DE/WM of your choice. However, if you're going with a simple Window Manager, you can probably just emerge it and add it to your .xinitrc (assuming that's how you want to use X11). You could also enable graphical login with a display manager like xdm. I can't really help you with that, I've never done it.

[Gokudan]

Well i was able to finish the networkless installation of amd64 and i am able to boot and see the command line, but of course there's no GUI, i tried su to root but it says permission denied, i tried the solution "gpasswd -a username wheel" but it says "gpasswd: Permission denied" also tried "usermod -G users, wheel username" but no good either, as it says "-bash: usermod: command not found" ..

when i type groups at prompt i only see:

users myusername

Any thoughts?

BR's
GD

You have to be root to modify your user details.

So, did you set a root password during the install? If so, just logout from your user account and login as root. Then, set up your regular user with the permissions and groups desired.

If you did not, you will have to chroot in (using the LiveCD) and type passwd to set the root password. Then, proceed as I said above.

For the GUI, look here. Start with the The X Server Configuration HOWTO. If you have an nvidia or ATI graphics card, check out those guides too. After all of that, you can look at the guides for the DE/WM of your choice. However, if you're going with a simple Window Manager, you can probably just emerge it and add it to your .xinitrc (assuming that's how you want to use X11). You could also enable graphical login with a display manager like xdm. I can't really help you with that, I've never done it.

I did set a root password, that's why i'm trying to login as root, but, in the faq of su to root problems they say i need to have at least one user as part of the wheel group, in order to be able to su to root, and they gave the 2 solutions i tried with no luck.

i'm currently logged in as my user and logged out then logged in as root without problem, i was able to add my user to wheel group wiiiii hahahaha

I'm planning using gnome, i'll be back with some more questions.

Thanks for the help shinnythings

BR's
GD.

[Gokudan]

When i try to do emerge xorg-x11 i get an error...it think it might be because i still have no internet connection...crap....having wireless sucks.

Let me try and see what can i do with this...

BR's
GD.